7 minute read
Interview with Bad Child
Canada has given us some exciting musical acts such as Drake, The Weeknd, Alessia Cara or Grimes. From the vibrant Toronto scene is emerging an artist that goes by no genre. Self-taught singer-songwriter, producer and multiinstrumentalist Isaiah Steinberg, a.k.a BAD CHILD, is a free spirit which gives an accurate glance to the world surrounding him. With a sharp energy and pen, he dissects our modern relationships and its excesses, as well as his own internal troubles. His 9-track debut EP «Sign Up» - brilliantly structured on a dystopic background - is now out and paves the way for a long-standing album, finally coming in 2020.
On The Move : Nice to meet you Isaiah! Can you talk about your first memory related to music?
BAD CHILD : My first memory related to music was that I lived with my grandmother and she was a small Algerian woman. She had a piano in her garage, it wasn’t good. She said «You know, we’ve got a piano, you should go play it, go have fun and learn something». So I was like «Oh!» because usually she would give me a spoon and say «Go dig in the dirt» (laugh). So, I used to turn up the radio and I would play piano to the radio and I’d figure things out by ear. That was my first memory with music.
On The Move : When did you feel like you could pursue a professional career in music?
BAD CHILD : It kind of came at a funny point in my life. I wanted to be a photojournalist, so I’d been doing photography for a long time. I would do a lot of drastic changes in my life. I lost my mom when I was 16. I had to put my energy somewhere. It ended up being music. The first song I ever put out was a song called «Bad Child» which is also the name of the project and it did well. It was about three years ago. It did so well I started getting calls and messages from labels saying «Hey, send us an album». So I told my dad «I’m gonna do music, I’m not gonna stop». I slept on the floor and I ate oatmeal for a year. After that year, I signed a recording contract, and I just said «This is what I’m gonna do with my life».
On The Move : You come from Toronto which has had an especially vibrant musical scene for the past decade. What do you think is so special there?
BAD CHILD : I think it has to do with the culture and how multicultural Toronto is. You can walk down a street and go to any type of restaurants that you can imagine. I think that empowers people culturally. They tend to look deeper into who they are. Toronto definitely has a sound. I don’t think I fit in the Toronto sound at all but it’s always something that I’ve been excited about.
On The Move : And the name Bad Child, where does it come from?
BAD CHILD : To me, «Bad Child» is about redemption and it is the idea that you’re a bad child, you’re not good enough. That was my way of reclaiming that… You know my whole life, I’ve never felt like I was good enough. I wanted to take that moniker and almost empower it. Saying yeah, you know what I mean, I wasn’t good enough but I will be.
On The Move : It’s also the title of your first single. You released it on Soundcloud a few years back and then re-released it this year as some kind of a new introduction. What happened between these moments in your career?
BAD CHILD : Well, I produce all the music myself so I played it all and I recorded it all. So when I put out the first one, I was like «this is getting a good acclaim, maybe I should take this really seriously and I should re-record everything professionally for radio just to sparkle it up a little bit». So I re-recorded all of my music in a couple of different studios. I wanted to make sure that it was all packaged and fine. I spent a lot of time compiling a full album. The album has been done for more than a year now so I am just in the process of releasing it.
On The Move : We particularly like your track «Breathing Fire». Can you talk a bit about it? What is it about?
BAD CHILD : «Breathing Fire» is a song about passion and it’s a song about how fleeting life is. I always thought that life was so short and I used to be so scared of dying, I used to be so scared of stuff like that. I used to be scared of loving because it was like «wow, if I love something it will always go away». But that song was, for me, trying to empower myself and say «I need to be passionate, I need to be open». That’s what the song is about.
On The Move : Do all of your tracks come from your own story or do you also draw inspiration from others somehow?
BAD CHILD : I have a hard time singing about stuff that isn’t going on in my life so one of the things I do when I write sometimes is I love to go and be a people-watcher, sat in a cafe. Someone will say something and it will have a really profound impact on my life. I’d be like «wow, I never thought about something that way». So sometimes I’ll hear somebody say something and I will be like «that’s a line!». It’s a part of my song now. It could be anything.
On The Move : How do you usually start a track? Do you have a specific process?
BAD CHILD : I think to keep it exciting, you can’t become too obsessed with the process. I’m always writing. I’m also drawing. Sometimes, I’ll draw and the drawing I make will actually become a song. I’ll say «Oh, that’s a character for a song» or something. I’ll start drawing the lyrics on top of the drawing. I just write free form. Sometimes, I’ll hear a door close in a certain way, maybe it will resonate or make a sound. I’ll say «Oh, that’s the sound of a snare drum!». Lately, I was painting a room and I smacked the paint roller on the wall. I said «that’s the snare on the song!».
On The Move : Talking about your drawings, it seems like images and the visual aspect are important for you as well. Do you think about your music videos early in the process? Or does it come at the end?
BAD CHILD : A little bit of both. I mean I’ve always had kind of in mind what I want to see for my music. But once again, the process, I try to experiment with it. A couple months ago, I made a music video to a song that didn’t exist and then I wrote the song to the video. I was asking myself «What can you create if you just let loose?». Because the way I see it, I always feel like people make a video for a song when you should make a video with a song. They’re made together.
On The Move : It is a tough question but how would you describe your sound for someone that does not know you yet?
BAD CHILD : I would describe my sound as very multigenre. Personally, I’ve always thought the idea of genre was silly. I want to make music for people that have free spirit and they know what they like. I would say my music is between Sean Paul and Nine Inch Nails, like somewhere in between. I also get inspired by Radiohead, Frank Zappa, Led Zeppelin, Kanye West, Kid Cudi... and a lot of world music!
On The Move : You were talking about an upcoming album. Nowadays, a lot of artists think about their music through EPs and playlists rather than albums. Why is this format still important to you?
BAD CHILD : The album is very conceptual. I’m telling the stories of my life. It is so important to me that you can have these songs on their own but when you listen to them together, it is telling you a broader story. The whole record I have designed has these interludes weaving through all the songs. For me, it is important just to package my story properly because I understand the singles thing. I don’t care about getting famous, I don’t care about «Oh, you have to put these songs out». I was always taught that less is more. One good song is better than ten alright songs. I really focused on making the tidiest album I could.
On The Move : What are the themes running through this album?
BAD CHILD : It is all about how people use each other, I would say. It was called «Free Trial». People use each other like free trials now, I think. It goes through ideas like… You have Tinder and you can look at the images of somebody and say «would I? would I not?». It’s commodification. You’re taking these persons and you don’t know them but you’re judging them just like that. I think that it’s business subverting the way people look at each other now. So, what could I get out of that person? It is like transaction. So, it’s all about that.
On The Move : In this industry you want to evolve in, social media is important now. How do you see it?
BAD CHILD : Social media is a really important tool. For me, it’s always been like being able to be educated, being able to be connected. That is so important. When it comes to being a musician and having to use social media... When I first started, I had to figure this out. Now, I think I am much more fluent and comfortable, doing Q&As and stuff. It is so important.
On The Move : What can we expect from you in real life, in your live shows?
BAD CHILD : I have a really terrific band put together and I’ve always seen it as explosive energy. I can’t sit still when I get on a stage! To me, it’s always so important that there is energy and I’ve always wanted to be able to connect with an audience like there is nothing in between you and the people that you are playing with.
INTERVIEW BY CORALINE BLAISE AND DéBORAH GAILLARD PHOTOS : THE FELDMAN AGENCY
